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Welcome back to another currency report, indicating the latest results and movements in the currency markets. Would the pound achieve anything of note this week, or would it all be bad news?

An overview of the currency markets for October 15th – October 19th 2012

So to start the new week’s worth of results, let’s see where the British pound was positioned against the US dollar. The pound started on 1.6081 on Monday morning, and by the end of the day it had slid back a little to close on 1.6064. Not the best start but it was still early days. Indeed it perked up a little the following day to reach 1.6112, but could it stay in such a position for the remainder of the week? The answer was no – by the time the rest of the trading days had gone by, the pound was down to 1.6038 – lower than the opening position for Monday had been.

Let’s see then if we could do any better against the Euro. Our starting point here was 1.2399 and once again we saw a drop on the first day, taking us down to 1.2384. But how would things progress from here on in? Unfortunately as it turned out, every single day would be on a downward spiral, as the pound lost control of its standing against the Euro. By the time the week was over we were left with a rate of 1.2303.

So let’s see if the pound could do any better against the Hong Kong dollar. Here we started with a rate of 12.466, and once again the first bit of news wasn’t good, as we fell back to 12.451. We did then bounce back to 12.488 on Tuesday though, so perhaps things wouldn’t be as bad here. The week ended up being a bit up and down, and by the time Friday evening arrived the pound had stalled on 12.430.

Let’s move on and find out how things stood against the New Zealand dollar now. The pound started the week on 1.9609 and this actually improved to 1.9685 by the end of the first day. Indeed the first half of the week was encouraging to say the least, as the pound hit 1.9788 on Tuesday before falling back to 1.9727 on Wednesday. But the last rate of the week was bad news, as the pound slid all the way back to 1.9575.

With one currency pairing left to go, the pound clearly wasn’t doing well this week. We started with a rate of 1.5690 against the Australian dollar, and this fell to 1.5680 on day one. It soon became clear the pound would be in trouble again this week against the Australian dollar, as the closing rate on Friday evening turned out to be 1.5485.

Notable events in the world of currency

An improvement against the Canadian dollar

After the wealth of poor results above, it was refreshing to see the pound rise from 1.5719 to 1.5853 against the Canadian loonie.

A poor set of results against the Swiss franc

This followed the general pattern of poor results though, as the pound dropped from 1.4994 to 1.4896.

Another good result against the Icelandic krona

We found another good result here, as the pound went from 197.447 at the beginning of the week to 198.829 at the end of it.

So all in all it was a disappointing week for the British pound, although there were a few choice results worth celebrating that could be found in the mix. Perhaps things will look up in the near future, but we can only hope next week has a better set of results than this one. We shall be watching closely to see what happens and to see whether the pound has enough strength to start battling back against many of the major currencies. Make sure you join us again next week for another look at the latest events.

Comment

This is getting a bit dull isn’t it? All we read about is how badly the pound is doing. I want to know why. When can we expect something different for a change?

This is certainly a disappointment. It doesn’t seem to add up to me, because all of Europe (virtually) is struggling and the Eurozone is going back into recession again. Even the mighty countries of Germany and France are sliding backwards, so surely the Euro should be in trouble in terms of the exchange rates? We know it’s in trouble anyway, so surely the rates should be worse? In addition to this I have read that Britain is doing exceptionally well compared to countries that are part of the Eurozone, and yet we are doing badly in terms of our currency. This is what I would like to have explained, the fact that things seem at odds with the way the currencies are behaving. Does it really depend on how each country is performing, or is there more to it than this? I wonder if it is a case of a number of traders looking at which currencies they can make more money from, and therefore driving up (or down) the currencies in turn. That would seem to make more sense to me.